One of the most
gratifying facts of our homopathic healing art is, that many
conditions classed as surgical by the Old School are cured without
operative means by the Appropriate medicine.

Tumors of all kinds,
glandular enlargements, fistulæ, fissures, ulcers and many forms of
bone disease are now attacked with the knife without hesitation because
no other means of relief are known to those ignorant of the efficiency
of homopathic agencies.

In the first place, a
close prescriber of homopathic remedies will find the field of
operative work steadily lessened. Tracheotomy, intubation of the larynx,
urethrotomy, ovarian operations and scores of other procedures will be
necessary in very rare instances when the case has been under rational
treatment from its incipiency- I have been called to perform tracheotomy
in two instances, in both of which the patients were cured without the
use of instruments, suppress a discharge but do not cure the patient. I
have under my care today a patient whose bladder is the seat of a
malignant growth, the direct result of years of sound passing,
astringent washes, and harsh mechanical treatment. The indicated remedy
has not, and will not cure him, but it has for 22 months kept his pain
in check and has apparently prevented the extension of the trouble. He
transacts business with comfort and rarely has more than a passing spell
of pain. Four years ago, a well-known surgeon, who believed himself a
homopathist, assured the patient that his only possible hope of relief
lay in a perineal section, to furnish a drainage outlet. Ten months ago
a young man received a wound in the thigh from a spike. A profuse
discharge of pus kept up inspite of heroic local treatment.

The diseased tract was
at last cauterized with nitrate of silver. This was followed by pyæmia
and death in six weeks. The medical attendant gave the cause of death as
typhoid fever. Two thousand dollars accident insurance money was
involved. The parents consulted me, and I gave a strong written opinion
that the cause of death was pyæmia. It is gratifying to know that my
service to the family resulted in the payment of one thousand dollars by
the insurance company. Some years ago a Mrs. B---., aged 29, was
afflicted with a troublesome leucorrha, for which she consulted a
well-known gynecologist. The discharge was suppressed quite rapidly.
Soon thereafter she began to suffer intolerably from dyspepsia and
conjunctivitis. For these she was treated unsuccessfully for years by
eminent practitioners without any result save steady aggravation. When
she applied to me her eyesight was nearly gone. She had been tortured
without benefit by a score of oculists, including two of the most
eminent of New York city. Sulphur
nearly cured her, and the successful termination of the case under Pulsatilla
was very satisfactory.

These cases are given
to prove that suppression and cure are totally different results. And,
indeed, it does seem remarkable, perhaps unexplainable, that professed
homopaths will confuse cause with effect, as many of them do. Rational
physiology teaches that nature does nothing without a reason ;
there is always method in her movements, and instead of thwarting and
resisting her decrees our duty lies in co-operating with her. Nature
never begins a discharge, never throws out an eruption, never
deliberately establishes a destructive process without a reason
satisfactory to herself. Whether this reason satisfies us is not the
question. We can explain the modus operandi of the action of remedies.
Nature acts, our remedies act, or fail to act, and this is as far as
positive knowledge can in many instances go.

Accurately speaking,
our surgical remedies include nearly the entire list of our medicines.
There are some, however, more prominent in the surgical field than
others, and these ! shall outline briefly.

For shock. Camphor.
Veratrum-album and Cargo-veg.,
are prominent. Coldness is the main feature of Camphor,
blueness calls for Carbo-veg., and
the well-known cold sweat on the forehead and on the body points to Veratrum.
-alb. I have repeatedly witnessed the efficacy of these
remedies in surgical shock. One case is recalled where exceedingly
brilliant results were obtained from Carbo-veg.
The patient seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the
depths of shock from which appeared there would be no awakening. I gave
the remedy in water and repeated it several times. Its action astonished
the attendants. The patient seemed entirely.

For the effects of
hæmorrhage. Aconite. China and
perhaps Arsenic are invaluable. Aconite
is indicated by the distressing restlessness and tossing about, and is
useless when its peculiar mental state it absent. The savage thirst
immediately following loss of blood is frequently controlled most
admirably by Arsenic. When the acute
symptoms have subsided no medicine equals China.
I have noted its splendid effects time and again, and can bear testimony
to its great curative powers in these conditions.

For the control of
hæmorrhage we have a score of medicines whose efficiency is too
well-known to require mention in this place.

After severe operations
upon the abdomen, Staphysagria
deserves especial mention for its power to control subsequent pain. In
two cases I have observed substantial benefit from its administration.

To control painful
surgical conditions we have at our command some remedies whose powers
are far-reaching. Intolerable, tearing pains in a wound or stump call
for Coffea moderate pain with great
restlessness demands Aconite :
Sharp, darting pains along the line of the incision are generally
relieved promptly by Ledum.

The Silicea
patient is cold, objectively and subjectively ; his movements are
sluggish ; his wounds are slow in coming, slow in healing ;
the pus is offensive.

The Hepar
patient is more quickly attacked, is inclined to heal more rapidly, his
wound is more active, and his discharges are less offensive.

The Calcarea
patient is sweaty, blue-eyed, fat or lean, but always flabby ; his
wounds leave large scars ; his neck is enlarged somewhere ;
his joints are loose. A patient with a long scar in the carotid
triangles and with a pair of crooked legs always calls for Calcarea.
The pus is thin and runs easily as a rule.

Phosphorus

presents a sensitive wound ; it bleeds freely ; it appears
angry and fiery red, or perhaps pale, but always ready to bleed in a
stream ; the patient is tall, spare, red-headed and freckle-faced.
He is constipated and has at times some indefinite trouble with his
bladder.

In the management of
dislocations, my experience is that Rhus
is our best medicine because indicated most frequently. Within three
weeks I have had a number of cases of dislocated shoulder, in patients
of all ages, and Rhus has been of great service in their after
treatment. In none of my cases has there been extensive injury of the
soft tissues. These observations are merely suggestive.

In any event this field
presents a very hopeful outlook for the student of ætiology. The
suppression of skin diseases, the drying up of eruptions and ulcers, the
ignoring of the true nature of many so-called local diseases and their
actual suppression will, I think, account for much that appears so
mysterious today. For the past few years I have made it a point to
inquire carefully into the past history of cancer patients, and in no
case have the evidence of suppression been lacking.

A minister, aged 42,
presented a retinal sarcoma. Twenty years ago he had some skin disease
which disappeared under the use of a white ointment. Ten years later he
had scalp disease. Nitrate of silver suppressed
this. Today he has a manifestation that neither white ointment, nor
nitrate of silver, nor saw or chisel will long suppress. Is it all
improbable that suppression added an element of malignancy ?

A young man of 23 came
to me for a cancer of the nose. Four years ago he had a venereal sore.
It was caused to disappear by cauterization. My belief is that it
readily consented to suppression in one locality and that it fortified
itself against subsequent suppression while in transit. The nasal
disease, whatever it is, has grown better under the indicated remedy. A
surgeon had advised operation.

It will surprise those
who have not given the matter thought to know what proportion of cases
of mammary cancer follow the suppression of uterine discharges. Possibly
these may all be coincidences, but the practical universality of
coincidence suggests an underlying law somewhere.

Last summer I was
called to see a case of rapid-growing Sarcoma. The man presented a
history of Syphilitic ulceration, first upon the ankles, then upon the
arms, at last upon forearms, and all these manifestations, the mere
outlets established by natural processes, were violently undone by
escharotics. Nature finally ordered a revolt and this time the revolt
was fatal.

These observations are
given in the hope that they may aid in some slight way the evolution of
a rational treatment for cancer. No treatment that leaves destruction in
its track can be denominated rational. The true method wilt consist in
the prevention of that which tens of thousands of cases teach us that we
cannot cure. Prevention is one of the highest duties of the physician.
In the case of cancer we are left no alternative.